What was the base price of the original Tesla Roadster in 2008?
Answer
$109,000
The base price of the original Tesla Roadster in 2008 was $109,000.
The first-generation Roadster was Tesla’s debut production vehicle, and it combined a lightweight Lotus Elise-derived chassis with an electric powertrain and lithium-ion battery pack. Tesla began series production in 2008, making the car one of the earliest highway-legal production vehicles to use lithium-ion cells at scale.
At $109,000, the Roadster was positioned as an expensive sports car rather than a mass-market electric vehicle. Its price reflected low-volume assembly, the cost of its battery technology, and the engineering work required to adapt the Lotus chassis. The car’s premium positioning also helped Tesla demonstrate that an electric vehicle could deliver sports-car performance and usable range.
The price is sometimes confused with other figures from the Roadster’s development and later versions. Technical tables list prices such as $98,950 for an earlier configuration and higher prices for later Roadster variants, including the Roadster Sport. But for the original 2008 production car as commonly cited, $109,000 is the canonical base-price answer.